Favourite holidays with children/teenagers

[PoppyDotx]

Hi all,

Ds is currently six months old and before he was born dh and I were very keen travellers and I want to continue travelling with him and any other dc who may come along so I was wondering throughout the years what was your favourite holiday with the kids or what was their favourite holidays? What kind of things did you do? What would you do again, what things did you regret and any tips really?

Many thanks.

Campervan holidays when they were little were brilliant, we went from campsite to campsite so they never got bored and if the weather wasn't great it was easy to picnic in and change clothes during the day.

A summer trip to Austria was our best trip. Loads of free play areas, swimming lakes etc. Plus alpine slides, summer skiing, rolling down massive hills and drinking from waterfalls.

I think the children were 12 and 5, so maybe one for the distant future!

Second Austria with primary aged kids - clear lakes lots of lake swimming and they have lots of outdoor family orientated activities

I’ve holidayed extensively with my now grown up
DC and never had a bad holiday. I do a lot of research before and never risk going anywhere in the rainy season. Until my youngest was 5 I only went on short haul or UK holidays. That worked for us, we did a lot of Mark Warner holidays as found the routine worked well for my DC and we all enjoyed the watersports (well more mini boat trips for our DC).
I then got more ambitious each year. I started with the Caribbean, then twin Center Caribbean, then added places like South Africa and South America. When my DC were younger, around primary school age they loved holidays where they could jump in a pool all day or play on a beach. So we’d do a lot of this with interesting sightseeing trips on the holiday too. When my DC were 8 and 10 I started thanking them on cruises and these really worked for us. We nearly always do a stay in a hotel before or after a cruise. My DC have been on 11 cruises and they’ve all been really successful holidays.
Since birth I’ve taken my DC to Center parcs and we still love going there. We’ve found the more money you have for activities the better the experience there.
When we’ve done sightseeing with the DC we’ve kept the days quite short and always included a gift shop or souvenir shop and ice creams etc. We not had any moaning, looking around places like Rome has just become normal because they did it from a young age.
I think our favourite holidays have been a trip to Cape Town and a Disney Cruise around the Med. obviously both totally different but both so good.
I’ve taken my DC to Euro Disney and California and Florida Disney. We did the American ones before going on cruises. Disney were not our best holidays, I’m not sure if it’s because we used to do a lot of theme parks in the UK or if it’s that we prefer other activities. One DS did really enjoy Universal Studios as an 18 year old.
When my DC we’re about infant school age we stayed at a hotel in Butlins and we all enjoyed that, my DC actually cried all the way home.
When they were early teens we stayed at Atlantis the Palm and we all absolutely loved the water park there.

We’ve done lots of different holidays with them, and now the kids are 16/18 and say their favourite holidays were:

1.) Devon/Somerset when we rent a house with all the uncles, aunties and cousins

2.) Norway (hiking, swimming in lakes, having a bbq picnic on walks) with uncle and auntie

3.) Barcelona (rooftop pool, wandering around a lot, nice food, people were nice, but I gather they are now sick of tourists in Barcelona. This was 19 yrs ago)

What did not feature was Indonesia, Mexico and Vietnam (ie our bigger trips) (they remember being too hot, jellyfish, mosquitos and other bugs, being in hospital with food poisoning/dehydration)

Devon is the firm favourite, because of the cousins and uncles, about playing rounders and visit beaches in storms

So for kids, it’s not about location and luxury/adventure/historic buildings/museums. It was all about people to share it with.

My kids all time favourite was camping in Zimbabwe when they were 10 and 7.

My dcs are now 15 & 10 they still talk fondly about our holidays to Butlins Skegness we haven’t been since youngest was around 4 but we enjoyed several holidays there from eldest been a toddler.

Mine absolutely loved Berlin when 10 and 12 we went for a week - definitely their favourite city.

We got into house swap when oldest started school which really opened up the world for us as no accommodation of car hire costs as we swapped houses and cars.

It's capturing the place at the right age!

We had the best family holidays in:

Isle d'Oleron when they were 6 & 4, beaches and cycling
Garda when they were 9 & 7, swimming football & made friends
Mexico when they were 15 & 13, swimming w whale sharks and turtles in the wild, seeing coatis & iguanas

Agree. When they were tiny we stayed in England as they didn’t care where they were and travel with babies and toddlers such an effort.

Actually one year when they a baby and a toddler my parents had them for 2 nights and we went to a posh hotel 30 mins away. We got more relaxation doing that than dragging them somewhere new!

I have a 14 year old asd and a 15 year old. If you asked them their favourites it would be

1. Australia, seeing the wildlife, possums, pademelon, koala, kangaroos, whales, dolphins, cassowary, rainforest, DD scuba dived in Great Barrier Reef and was so proud she did better than adults and saw a giant turtle.

1. Lapland at Christmas just magical and also lapland in summer seeing wildlife, white water rafting, summer toboggan, brown bears in wild

1. Costa Rica Ziplining from a few hundred metres in air, sloths, rainforest ds said he had found were he came from and belonged.

Loved ai places with watermarks when younger.

Mine love adventure, seeing different things like rainforest and wildlife. They are not bothered about food or museums etc, hated 1 camping trip we did. Prefer hotels and regular ones. Prefer AI but that's as ds is asd and dd is vegetarian and both love activities on site.

But will vary on your kids and what you prefer and ages. We didn't do longhaul until youngest was 9 but now they much prefer that, obviously not an option now. Ds said his perfect holiday would be 2 weeks non stop on a plane so think he might like a cruise. Their main essential is WiFi.

It changes massively by age. One holiday in Austria we bought them nets and they and done other children didn’t days playing in the lake looking for newts- result.

Our biggest trip was southern California when they 8 and 10 5 years later we still talk about it.

When they were younger they wanted things quickly and could be a pain on flights, they loved them but over excited so we preferred short-haul and AI so lots on site and then taking excursions out. But they also loved Premier Inns and when at primary they didn't really realise what country they were in, only noticed the differences. Mine liked those but not in same way as older.